“Will people die?” I asked.
“Yes, a thousand.”
While I contemplated the thousand dead, Dad ordered another drink and noticed a woman with peroxide blond hair and lipstick-stained teeth leaning on the bar. He gave her the number-three smile, the one usually reserved for getting out of speeding fines. She looked him over without moving her head.
“Hi,” Dad said.
As a response she lit a cigarette, and Dad scooted over a stool to get closer.
“What do you think of the band?” he asked. “It’s not really my type of music. Can I buy you a drink? What do you think of the band?”
She let out a laugh that was more like gargling in that it never left her throat. After a whole fat minute when nothing happened, Dad got sick of staring at her profile, so he scooted back to his original stool. He drank his beer in one go.
“Do you think you’ll ever get married?” I asked.
“I don’t know, mate.”
“Do you want to?”
“I’m not sure. On the one hand, I don’t want to be alone forever.”
“You’re not alone. I’m here.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said, smiling.
“What’s on the other hand?” I asked.
“What?”
“You said, ‘On the one hand, I don’t want to be alone forever.’ ”
“Oh, um. Shit. I can’t remember. It’s gone.”
“Maybe there’s nothing on the other hand.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I watched Dad’s eyes follow the blonde as she moved from the bar to a table of women. She must have said something about us, because they all looked over, and it seemed pretty obvious they were mentally spitting on Dad. He pretended to drink from his empty glass. The whole scene made me sick, so I turned one eye back to the cloakroom and the other to the mean, purple, murderous mouth of the architecture student, and I imagined him high up in an office, looking down on a thousand dead bodies and the silver arms of his broken bridge.
The red parka was still hanging around, killing time. It was getting late. I was tired. My eyelids wanted closure.
“Can we go?”
“What time does this bar close?” Dad asked the bartender.
“About six.”
“Fuck,” Dad said to me, and ordered another drink. Clearly he would stay out all night if need be. And why shouldn’t he? There was no one at home waiting up for us. No forehead crinkled with worry. No lips waiting to kiss us goodnight. No one to miss us if we never went back at all.
I laid my head on the bar. There was something wet and sticky under my cheek, but I was too tired to move. Dad sat erect on the bar stool, vigilant, watching the cloakroom. I drifted off to sleep. I dreamed of a face floating out of the dark. Nothing more than a face. The face was screaming, except the dream was silent. It was terrifying. I woke with a damp cloth at my nose.
“Move your head, please.”
It was the bartender wiping down the counter.
“What’s happening?”
“I’m closing up.”
I tasted salt. I reached up and wiped my eyes. I’d been crying in my sleep. This confused me. I don’t remember the face being sad, only scary. The bartender gave me a look that said I wouldn’t be a real man as long as I cried in my sleep. I knew he spoke the truth, but what could I do about it?
“What’s the time?”
“Five-thirty.”
“Have you seen my-”
“He’s over there.”
Dad was standing beside the cloakroom, bouncing on his toes. I craned my neck and saw the red parka still hanging around. There was only a handful of people left in the bar: the guy with the purple mouth, a woman with an angry face and a shaved head, a bearded man with a face full of rings, a Chinese girl in a jumpsuit, and a guy with the biggest potbelly I’d ever seen.
“I’m closing up now,” the bartender shouted to them. “Go home to your wives and children.”
That made everyone laugh. I didn’t see what was so funny about it. I went over and waited with Dad.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“I feel sick.”
“What’s the matter?”
“What are you going to do when you find him?”
Dad indicated with his eyebrows that he found my question ignorant. The patrons started leaving one by one. Finally the girl with the shaved head leaned on the cloakroom counter.
“That’s mine,” she said, pointing. “The red one.”
This was our man- or I should say woman. The culprit. The vandal. The clerk handed her the parka. Now what?
“Hello,” Dad said.
She turned her face to him. We got a good look at her. She had bright green eyes set in the boniest face I’d ever seen. I thought she should thank God for those eyes; they were the only beautiful things about her. Her lips were thin, almost nonexistent. Her face was gaunt and pale. She’d be nothing more than white skin stretched over a long skull if it weren’t for those eyes. They were translucent. Dad said hello again. She ignored him, opened the door with her foot, and went into the street.
Outside, a light rain was falling from a metal-yellow sky. I couldn’t see it but I knew the sun was around there somewhere- its yawn had lit the air. I took a deep breath. There’s no doubt about it, the dawn smells different from the rest of the day; there’s a certain freshness about it, like when you take a bite out of a head of lettuce and put it back in the fridge bite side down so no one will notice.
The girl was standing under the awning, doing up her famous red parka.
“Hello there.” Dad’s voice had no impact on her. I thought clearing my throat might help. It did. Her bright green eyes shone a spotlight on Dad and me.
“What do you want?”
“You scratched my car,” Dad said.
“What car?”
“My car.”
“When?”
“Earlier tonight, around a quarter to nine.”
“Says who?”
“Says me,” Dad said, then moved a step closer to the red parka with the green headlights. “I know it was you.”
“Get the fuck away from me before I call the police.”
“Ho-ho, you want to call the police, do you?”
“Yeah, maybe I do, moneybags.”
“What did you call me?”
“I called you moneybags, moneybags.”
“Every time you open your mouth, you’re incriminating yourself. Why do you think I’m a moneybags unless you’ve seen my car?”
Good one, Dad, I thought. She’s on the run now.
“Your suit looks like something a fat rich bastard would wear.”
Good one, Green Eyes. She got you there, Dad.
“For your information, I’m not a moneybags,” Dad said.
“I don’t care what you are.”
This ludicrous evening seemed to be reaching a dead end. Dad had crossed his arms and was trying to stare down Green Eyes, but she had crossed her arms and was glaring right back at him with eyes so wide they were positively lidless. Was that it? Could we go home now?
“How old are you?”
“Fuck off.”
“I only want two things from you.”
“Well, you aren’t getting them.”
“I want a confession and an explanation. That’s all.”
This is exactly the kind of thing a single man can do at five-thirty in the morning, I thought- this is exactly why people have wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends, so they don’t allow themselves to get too creepy. But leave a man alone for long enough and there is nothing odd he won’t do. A life lived alone weakens the mind’s immune system, and your brain becomes susceptible to an attack of strange ideas. “I want a confession and an explanation,” Dad repeated, and placed his hand on her shoulder as if he were a security guard surprising a shoplifter. She started screaming, “Help! Police! Rape!”
Then Dad had yet another dubious idea: he started shouting for the police too. He nudged me. He wanted me to join in. I shouted along with the other two, calling out rape, calling for the cops. But I didn’t stop there. I called for a SWAT team too. I called for helicopters. I called for Satan. I called for the ground to swallow the sky. That quieted her down. She stepped off the pavement into the rain. Dad and I walked into the street beside her without talking. Every now and then Green Eyes took a peek at me.